Friendly Fires

English rock band Friendly Fires was formed recently, in 2006; however its members got acquainted a long time ago. For the very first time they met at school, and at age of fourteen they started their first band named First Day Back. That group did not exist for long, but it was definitely priceless experience for the musicians. Bu the way, the frontman Ed Macfarlane managed to lead his little solo project and he even released several compositions through one electronic label. It seems that during the university studying young men’s interests were somehow shifted. No, they were still fond of music, but the post-hard-core, which had been presented in the creativity of their first band First Day Back was substituted by dance motives. Thus, the rockers, inspired by the music of dance floors, formed the brand new group - Friendly Fires.

In 2007 the band was not only noticed, but also invited to the famous show Transmission. The trio’s performance was outstanding, so quite soon after that the musicians got an opportunity to choose the record label – sure thing that many companies wanted to work with young and promising rockers. Friendly Fires preferred to collaborate with XL Recordings and began preparing the material for their debut record. Self-titled studio attempt Friendly Fires saw the light in autumn 2008 and it immediately got excellent reviews from experts. It is worth mentioning that rockers’ compositions proved to be called-for: On Board appeared in the game Gran Turismo 5, In The Hospital and Lovesick were included into the soundtrack to Colin McRae: DiRT 2, while many other songs were used in various TV series and shows. Well, Friendly Fires started their career in an incredibly confident and mature way. It is not a surprise that fans had been looking for the band’s second album.

Three years after release of Friendly Fires the trio issued the new creation that they titled Pala. Of course listeners wanted to get an album, which quality and content would not be worse than the previous ones. Actually the quality was not a thing to worry about, as soon as the musicians mastered their skills, and the work that had been done in the studio was just enormous. However everyone will have to choose the record to his or hers taste and that is the reason why: Friendly Fires’s first long play was more dance-oriented, while Pala demonstrated a transfer to more thoughtful indie-rock. But atmospheric Pala will hardly disappoint lovers of dancing, because the quantity of energetic melodies and rhythms is just fine indeed. There is no doubt that the musical experiment of Friendly Fires turned out to be a success. The British proved that they can create various music and that they truly enjoy it. They are interesting to listen to, and isn’t it the main point?